dvgrn wrote:I'm a little worried about 16.3032 / xs16_1784ozx342sg, the last still life on the list, since it only shows up in symmetrical soups, and the only likely-looking soup out of the whole bunch seems as if it's going to end up taking eight pairs of gliders to reproduce the recipe... and I bet that's exactly where the current cost comes from!

The current recipe comes from 14.463 and four extra gliders. There are 27 soups for that still life.

dvgrn wrote:I'm a little worried about 16.3032 / xs16_1784ozx342sg, the last still life on the list, since it only shows up in symmetrical soups, and the only likely-looking soup out of the whole bunch seems as if it's going to end up taking eight pairs of gliders to reproduce the recipe... and I bet that's exactly where the current cost comes from!

The current recipe comes from 14.463 and four extra gliders. There are 27 soups for that still life.

chris_c wrote:Now everything is at most 16G and there are just 20 left...

The rate of progress has been impressive lately -- and @chris_c, I'd say it really wouldn't have been possible without your organization of the effort. Thanks!

I've been thinking a little bit about what to do next with all these syntheses, along the lines of making online access a little easier. Apple Bottom has added a link to the up-to-12-bit synthesis builder in the LifeWiki infobox -- see for example beehive at beehive.

The link shows up for some still lifes but not others, and I haven't looked into why that is exactly -- work in progress. How hard will it be to get that page working for everything up to 16 bits -- and might it make sense to host it somewhere else, like maybe on conwaylife.com?

-- Just by the way: if the title of this thread were to be taken literally, y'all would suddenly be done already...!

dvgrn wrote:@chris_c, I'd say it really wouldn't have been possible without your organization of the effort. Thanks!

No problem. Just please nobody mention 17-bit still lifes for at least a little while!

dvgrn wrote:I've been thinking a little bit about what to do next with all these syntheses, along the lines of making online access a little easier. Apple Bottom has added a link to the up-to-12-bit synthesis builder in the LifeWiki infobox -- see for example beehive at beehive.

The link shows up for some still lifes but not others, and I haven't looked into why that is exactly -- work in progress. How hard will it be to get that page working for everything up to 16 bits -- and might it make sense to host it somewhere else, like maybe on conwaylife.com?

Not hard at all. The website just consists of thesetwo files and a copy of lv-plugin.js. The glider synthesis data is taken from here and dumped line by line within quotes toward the end of display_synth.js. To go up to 16-bit still lifes would make the size of display_synth.js roughly 500K.

The system is capable of holding syntheses of oscillators as well as still lifes. If someone can supply a list of apgcodes that the wiki should provide syntheses for then I can provide a corresponding version of display_synth.js.

A preliminary step in this project was creating a translation between Niemiec's still life numbering and apgcodes. The fact that a similar list does not exist for oscillators is the only reason that I didn't reply to Goldtiger's query here.

dvgrn wrote:@chris_c, I'd say it really wouldn't have been possible without your organization of the effort. Thanks!

Agreed!

chris_c wrote: Just please nobody mention 17-bit still lifes for at least a little while!

I sort of feel the same way. When a project like this comes round, I feel obliged to contribute, when sometimes I would rather be doing other things in life (double meaning intended). Considering that this project has taken about 5 months so far, the 17-bit version would take a very long time. If we do eventually attempt the 17-bit still-lifes, perhaps it would be better to start with an easier goal, such as synthesising them all in less than 2 gliders/bit, or just getting explicit syntheses for them all.

chris_c wrote:A preliminary step in this project was creating a translation between Niemiec's still life numbering and apgcodes. The fact that a similar list does not exist for oscillators is the only reason that I didn't reply to Goldtiger's query here.

chris_c wrote: Just please nobody mention 17-bit still lifes for at least a little while!

I sort of feel the same way. When a project like this comes round, I feel obliged to contribute, when sometimes I would rather be doing other things in life (double meaning intended).

And yet people keep mentioning the darn things.

Goldtiger997 wrote:If we do eventually attempt the 17-bit still-lifes, perhaps it would be better to start with an easier goal, such as synthesising them all in less than 2 gliders/bit, or just getting explicit syntheses for them all.

I still like the idea of an online collection system, preferably connected to Catagolue. It would be nice to be able to gradually accumulate syntheses and converters for a while, and then kick off a new challenge to finish the next group -- sometime in the safely distant future when the number of unknowns has been reduced to something reasonable.

I think that until Catagolue at least reports an up-to-date cost of the current cheapest synthesis for each still life, I'll officially boycott the Interminable Glider Synthesis Project -- not that I'll be much missed, given my current level of contribution...!

But I heartily recommend that everyone else join in the boycott, after the 16-bitters are polished off. If nothing else, collective productivity on other tasks will go way up.

I found an approach that may work for 16.1787 (aka xs16_069m4koz311); however, I don't know if there is a 3 or 4 glider construction for a transient group that has 7 cells at some point (found on the upper right).